HUMAN
It wasn’t uncommon for families to show up in Konoha practically overnight. Some fleeing war or personal attacks. Others famine or poor living conditions. And yet others for seemingly no reasons at all. It was known practically throughout all the great nations that Konoha was a place of refuge. However, there was something to be said for the Haruno household. A small merchant family of three that appeared in the middle of the night they claimed to be the sole survivors from a small tributary boarding the outskirts of Fire territory. When shinobi were sent out to verify their story, as was procedure, they only found a few strange, withered vines but not a single person remained.
From the moment they moved to Konoha there was something that just didn’t sit right with them. Something a bit unnatural. The parents, Mebuki and Kizashi, tried a bit too hard to fit in. Their laughs a bit too loud, their eyes a bit too human, their smiles a bit too friendly. It was almost as though everything about them was too human to seem natural. The daughter, Sakura, was off in a way that was completely different from her parents. While her parents seemed a bit too human, she was the opposite. She didn’t talk much and smiled even less. Her coloring too, was odd, looking like neither of her parents with her very pink pink hair and her eyes that seemed to be a bit too green. Even her body portions seemed to be off in a way that one couldn’t exactly put their finger on aside from the fact that her forehead was a bit too big.
It was because of this that she was often the target of bullying, especially from the children that were bigger and more…normal than her. It was during one of these bullyings that Shisui met her. Heading home from the Konoha Police Department, following a debriefing on yet another missing persons case, in normal shinobi fashion he was traveling by rooftop. It gave him time to think and process the recent events. There had been quiet a few disappearances as of late though at the moment they had nothing to go on. None of the M.O.s were the same. There was no rhyme or reason to the disappearances as none of the victims had anything in common. The suspect, whoever it was, was indiscriminate, kidnapping -or maybe trafficking- people of all ages (from infants to the elderly) and backgrounds. In fact, the reason the police department became alerted to the disappearances was because a few noble clanspeople had been among some of the more recent victims. If things kept going the way, they were a village wide curfew would be instated soon and that was always a headache.
Shisui, sighed scanning his surroundings. That’s when he first noticed the group of about six or so children circled around something in the back of one of the alleys. Figuring that the kids had cornered a cat or something Shisui jumped from the roof intending to save the poor unfortunate creature. At least that’s what he thought until he got a bit closer and could hear their taunts of “It’s all your fault!”
“Yeah!”
“Chuuya would still be here if you hadn’t showed up you forehead-freak!”
“Go back to wherever you came from and bring Chuuya back!”
“We don’t want you here!” With a deepening frown Shisui landed behind the kids startling them and sending them all running with a stern glare and promises of talking to their parents the following day about harassing others.
Walking over to see who it was the kids were harassing, though he had a feeling he already knew, he was still not prepared for what - or rather who- uncurled from a ball (that was much larger than he thought). It was the small pink haired Haruno child. He watched in fascination as she slowly lowered her arms and looked around skittishly as though she had expected them to still be there until her eyes landed on him. Disturbingly he noted the lack of tears from her swollen eyes. Though there was a level of fear in them, it was soon replaced by instant trust as she smiled at him. He should have known then that something was off.
It was beginning to get dark out and not knowing where her parents were, he decided to walk her home. As he took her hand, he noted she couldn’t have been more than maybe four years old. The same age as his youngest cousin. The moment he took her hand every shinobi sense he possessed screamed danger but looking down at what was basically the human embodiment of fluff Shisui shoved them to the back of his mind. There was no way something so small and Pink could be deadly. Especially to an Uchiha. So, with that in mind he asked the small girl where she lived at and if she could lead him to her home. The walk to her home was silent…and if there was one thing Shisui couldn’t stand when he wasn’t on the job was silence so he began talking about any and everything, though he was somewhat surprised at her lack of response. He had heard rumors of her being abnormally quiet, but he figured it was just that…a rumor. Finally, at one point he managed to get a small soft-spoken “Sakura” when he asked for her name but nothing more.
Much to his relief, her home was soon in view. Approaching the house, he noted that there were no lights on inside. He had heard of merchant families leaving their children behind when traveling but he never figured that it would happen to a child so young. Still as the young girl opened the door to go inside, he couldn’t just let her stay there all alone. With this resolve, once again ignoring his instincts, he followed her inside. He watched the girl shuffle off to the back of the house without turning on a light, assuming she was heading to the bathroom to clean up her cuts and bruises. The living room was sparsely furnished, he noted, as he turned on the light. There was a single couch but no table, or pictures, or anything to make the home inviting. It was as though no one lived here. Moving on to the kitchen, to see if she at least had food to eat, he frowned when there was no human food to be found in any of the cabinets or the refrigerator-only plant food. What kind of parents let a young child home alone with no food and no money to feed herself? He’d have to ask his aunt Mikoto to if she’d be willing to stop by occasionally to ensure that the girl was eating properly. This kind of behavior -shouldn’t -no, couldn’t- go on, and when her parents returned, he’d be having a word with them in front of the Hokage. Then again it was possible that maybe he was jumping to conclusions. Maybe they were just out for the evening.
“Hey Sakura-chan…Are your parents out for the evening? Did they leave you anything to eat for dinner?” He called out deciding to check in the oven just in case, noting that it was off and with a frown ne leaned in to have a closer look inside.
He nearly jumped out of his skin and successfully bumped his head in the oven when quite suddenly small hands tugged on the back of his shirt. He never even heard her approach. He was a shinobi for kami’s sake, an Uchiha! There was no way he shouldn’t have heard her approach.
“They’re out back tending the garden…” came the same soft reply as she pointed down the hallway where he had seen her disappear to earlier. She fidgeted and looked at her feet for a moment before looking up at him with eyes that seemed a bit too green…a bit too wide….a bit too… innocent in the kitchen light. “T…they want to thank you for saving me today…” Not giving him a chance to answer she grabbed his hand and led him down the darkened hallway and through the door which he previously assumed was the bathroom but was actually a door to the back yard. A back yard that was now as dark as the interior of the house was and was filled with pumpkins.
Activating his Sharigan to see better, he still managed to stumble as Sakura led him through the garden. With each step he took his feet seemed to tangle more and more in pumpkin vines. The further they went into the yard the bigger and more varied and less pumpkin like the pumpkins seemed to get. Some were regular looking orange pumpkins; some were dark green and yet others were white. Most were smooth but a few were irregularly shaped and/or had various lumps and bumps on them. Some seemed, though he was almost positive it was a trick of his imagination, when glancing at them from the corner of his eyes – for the briefest of moments – to have faces, but not all and never when he looked at them directly. Whenever he turned to look at them, expecting to see what he thought were faces – possibly contorted in fear or pain – he saw nothing but the fruit surrounding them. So he chocked it up to atmosphere fueled paranoia.
For such a small yard it seemed to be strangely huge. Grunting as his foot got caught on one particularly large vine, Shisui tumbled forward as the young child continued forward with him in tow seemingly unbothered by the vines. In fact, maybe it was his imagination again, but it almost seemed like the vines were only aiming to trip him up. But…that couldn’t be possible. Merchants didn’t know jutsus, let alone have the chakra to perform them. But, as vines seemed to wrap around his hands, he knew something was up and yet his sharigan could detect no chakra. The more he tried to free himself the more vines creeped up entangling him.
“Mama….Papa I brought him just like you asked.” The soft voice brought Shisui out of his musing and ceased his struggling for just a moment.
“This’ll help me become fully human right? And then I’ll finally fit in with the other kids?”
Shisui looked around easily locating Sakura but not who she was talking to. Nor did he hear any replies. All his roaming eyes could find were just two of the largest pumpkins he had ever seen. Feeling a vine creeping around his neck, and a few on his head from behind, he renewed his struggles even as Sakura turned her head to look at him her eyes shining so bright in the darkness, he could have sworn they were two bright flames, reminiscent of those in a Jack-O-Lantern. A part of him was stunned, angry even to see that there was a certain sadness to them as she backed up between the two giant gourds.
“I’m sorry, Shinobi-san…I…I just want to be a normal kid.”
